


Chained Gods / Freed Minds

by JawsLightning



Category: Original Work
Genre: Body Horror, Capitalism, Cyberpunk, Cyborgs, Dark Ages, Demons, Dystopian, Eldritch, Fantasy, Far Future, Future, Gothic, Horror, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Lovecraftian, Lovecraftian Monster(s), Mars, Old Gods, Other, Surreal, space goth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 06:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 5,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22471540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JawsLightning/pseuds/JawsLightning
Summary: Luth is a convenience store clerk in Gull Colony on Mars in the year 2783. Their lifepath is determined by the rule of one of the many massive corporations that founded colonies like this. After a night shift like no other, Luth is suddenly under scrutiny by the highest echelons of Mars' corporate rule. The research divisions of the Viscorp Conglomerate are hunting for an eldritch truth, and power to rival the Old Gods. Luth is now their main focus in this effort./Lilith is a minister in the Church of the Holy Solar Empire 1312 years since the fall of the Old Empire and the loss of Earth. Her duties are those of a scribe for the Inquisition's archives. On one fateful mission investigating a derelict monastic ship she comes into contact with... something. Something that exists beyond the light of the Lord. Something that will lead her down a path to dark enlightenment. Something that will free the whole of humanity.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	1. Chained Gods /

In a white, once immaculately maintained room, sits a person. The walls of this room are covered in plastiglas windows showing a beautiful late afternoon view of the surface of earth, from a vantage point high in orbit. Gentle afternoon light is cast onto the battered, bloodslicked body of the person. The room around them is scarred by bullet holes and the sooty residue of explosives, their body in a similar state. Their face is ashen, their breathing heavy, and their eyes unfocused. A gun is loosely held in their right hand. A noise on the opposing wall catches their attention and their eyes snap to its source. A TV displays a scene of people in worship. They stand, hands raised in prayer. A man stands on a podium in front of the throng of people, his white robes adorned with ornate logos reading “FIZZY POP” “BEASTLORD ENERGY” “CHEESY PUFFS” and more. Behind the man is an ornate golden sculpture of a man suspended on a cross. In one hand the sculpture holds a bag of chips, in the other a can of soda. The person looks down to the gun in their hand, then raises it to their head. 

* * *

The first thing for Luth to notice was the ringing in their ears. Second was that they were handcuffed to the table they’d just been unconsciously drooling on. Upon that realization, Luth shot up, much more awake and sober than they’d been feeling a moment prior. As they looked around their Nodephone activated, the neural implant flooding their vision with data. Luth sat in a cold, dry office, handcuffed to the faux wood table at its center. Sitting across from them was a smiling woman in a nice suit with a “MunchiStop” employee pin attached to the front. The display in Luth’s eye tried to show the woman’s ID, but the information was blacked out by company censors. “Mx. Davis.” she said “It is nice to meet you, I hope you’re feeling better.” The perfect cheeriness of her tone and demeanor gave an impression closer to that of a mannequin than a person “My name is Proctor Smith. I’d like to ask you a few questions about your experiences on Tuesday, March 13th, 2783.” 

Luth thought for a moment. What happened that night? What was today again? They tried to remember how they’d gotten there, where they’d even been the previous day. Tuesday had to have been when... That wasn’t a dream? The night seemed like normal at first in their memory. They’d clocked in, they’d sat on their phone for a few hours, a customer came in, a customer left, and then all Luth could remember was gibberish. Looking back on it all seemed like a dream. 

“Mx. Davis.” Luth Snapped back to Proctor Smith gazing with a warm smile and cold eyes. “Do you have any recollection of the events between 3 am and 4 am that night?” Luth stared at the woman, unable to read her. Luth was wrapped up in some shit, and the highest corporate stiff up there had their eye on them. Luth gulped. “May I ask what you guys are looking for? I’m sorry it’s a little hazy.” Proctor Smith smiled “We believe you may have been the victim of a terrorist attack Mx. Davis. We’re trying to assess what kind of weapons they were using. Did you see something? Hear something? Potentially a strange person coming in and behaving oddly?” upon hearing the last part something clicked in Luth’s memory and a rush of hazy images flooded their mind. “I…” they stammered “I think-I think there was… blood? Oh my God what the hell why was there so much blood…” Luth looked down, their head spinning. “Mx. Davis.” Proctor Smith’s voice was cold for a moment but quickly switched back to its chipper tone. “Just slow down. Try to breathe. Please do your best to just start from the beginning. What’s the first thing you remember?”


	2. / Freed Minds

A young woman stands on the surface of a wide, dark blue sea. Her skin is dark, her face is scarred, and her clothing is tattered. Her eyes open. Her corneas are blue, her pupils and irises fused as singular black circles. She looks up. Above her lies a metal floor scattered with religious iconography, debris, and bodies. In the center of the floor, directly above the woman, is a deep black orb. The woman stares at the orb for a moment. Then turns her direction “downwards” once more. In the deep of the sea below her she sees movement. As she focuses further she begins to hear gentle whispers, not from her surroundings, but from within her mind. She closes her eyes, and her body drops into the water. 

* * *

Lilith ran her hands through her prayer beads for the third time that flight. “In the name of the Lord, our Holy Father in Heaven, I ask that no harm come to those in my care. I ask that the tumult and the demons of the beyond are held back by your care and your grace, I ask…” She muttered through countless litanies of protection as the thrusters adjusted and slowed the descent of their pod to the hull of the derelict ship. Seven months ago communication had ceased with this monastic vessel. For the first few weeks nothing was made of it. Vessels such as this frequently went on lengthy refrains from contact, due to the reserved nature of monks, but when the bi-monthly status report was not received, inquiries were made. Initially, probes were sent out to ascertain what the issue might’ve been. Countless minor hiccups could’ve caused a thing like this, but when the first images were sent back to the Archbishop, the call was sent out. The Holy Inquisition would be called to investigate this grave matter. 

Lilith looked around the cramped cabin, still uncomfortable at the prospect of what they were about to witness. Lilith was not alone in her discomfort as even the warriors of the Lord’s Inquisition fidgeted with their harnesses, checked their weapons, and glanced about unsuredly. The armadas of the empire had always bravely fought the daemons across the system but such a direct incursion to such a minor target as a monastery ship was rare, and the job of having to directly investigate such a matter was not one that even a warrior of the Inquisition would actively seek out. As the proximity alarm began to pulse through the cabin, Lilith checked the seals on her protective vestments once more. She looked down at her prayer beads one last time. She thought of Tobias. Looking up to the hatch as it opened, Lilith whispered an extra prayer, hoping that her friend was safe. 


	3. Night Shift /

All of what Luth could recall felt like a haze. No beginning, no end. Just a mass of events without connecting tissue. But when Luth tried to remember the moments before the blur, things began to resolve. Late in the night, about the time that Luth usually got bored enough to start talking to themself, a man came in. It was a little strange that their nodephone didn’t display an ID for the man, but they assumed they’d just looked away too quickly. Luth ignored him at first, switching their monologue to an internal one and continuing to doodle on their notepad. Luth stopped when they started to hear laboured, hoarse breathing from the man. They’d looked up to see only his heaving shoulders as he was hunched over behind the chip aisle. Luth would’ve been content just calling out to him but then they noticed the blood. The path the man had walked through the store was marked with pools of blood, and bloody footprints to boot. Luth pulled out their phone and began to dial the Corporate Police as they walked around the aisle to get a look at the man. A clattering accompanied the drop of their phone when Luth saw him. 

He was wearing a coat that Luth could tell was once white, but had since become so smattered with blood that almost nothing remained of the original color. His face was etched with pain as seemingly every orifice on it spouted blood. His mouth, nose, ears, and even eyes all gushed the sticky red ichor. The second Luth’s phone hit the floor the man looked up at them. As their eyes met a guttural moan escaped the man’s mouth. The moan slowly escalated until the man was wailing like a lost child. He took a step towards Luth. Then another. Terror locked Luth in place as they had no idea how to process what they were seeing. As the man got closer, something hit Luth’s head. Shocked out of their paralysis Luth looked up. Out from the cracks between the tiles, blood was beginning to drip from the ceiling. The wailing stopped. Luth looked down to see the man lying on the ground, blood pooling around him. All around Luth blood began to pour. From the walls. From the floor. From the food on the rack. Then as the flow became a deluge, the walls and floor began to change. Luth’s feet sank down a bit, and they looked down to see that the ground they stood on had turned into deep red, pulsating meat. Luth looked up again to see that the rest of the store was undergoing the same horrific transformation. A massive red orb began rising out of the ground in front of Luth, and then it all went black. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok!!! I decided imma be posting these on thursdays now? I hope I can keep this up lol


	4. / Strange Waters

Lilith looked about as she stepped into the ship. The halls of the monastery seemed meager and well lived in, yet not a thing stirred throughout this first corridor. The torches that lined the walls had apparently been left in low power mode, giving an ominous red glow to this once lively place. Yet the most unsettling aspect of the scene was how the walls produced continuous trickles of water. While this was somewhat strange, the concern came mostly from how the water produced from the walls didn’t fall, it poured upwards. Lilith looked up to see that the ceiling of the hallway was filled with a pool of dark water. The water must have been shallow due to how close the ceiling was, yet the water looked deeper and darker than any Lilith had ever seen. “Brother Telius!” barked the Inquisitorial Captain “You and your squad shall remain stationed here by the docking port while our team continues on.” Brother Telius and his fellows signed the disc of rebirth, pounding their balled fists against their chests “Yes Captain!” they shouted in unison.  
With orders given out, the Captain waved for the remaining 2 squads to follow through the corridor. Lilith kept pace with the captain, her hands shaking as she tried to keep hold of her docu-slate. As the resident minister and thus scholar, Lilith’s duty was three fold. She was to provide informational support to the team, she was to provide blessings to keep her fellows safe, and she was to act as the Church’s eyes upon the Inquisition’s operations. Lilith had been on numerous outings with inquisitorial agents before, but this was her first that had potential demonic contact. It was this fact that kept returning to Lilith’s mind. It was this fact that made her hands shake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oo! spooky!


	5. Quarantine Ward /

“Mx. Davis?” Luth came out of their stupor to see Proctor Smith looking at them expectantly. “I-I think-” Luth was cut off by the banging of a door behind them. They jumped a bit, turning around to see what had happened. A fully armed and armored MunchiStop security officer stood behind them; covered from head to toe in black plate save for the MunchiStop logo on their right breast. “New orders. The prisoner is to be taken to the quarantine ward immediately.” came a deep robotic voice from behind the helmet. Proctor Smith stood, her demeanour reversing “What!? I haven’t even begun a proper interrogation! What’s the meaning of this!?” Her face was cold and her voice was furious. “New orders. Trace particles have been detected on the prisoner that could pose a serious health risk to any personnel around them.” Proctor Smith’s face went white and she took a few paces back. “Ah. Yes. Okay. Do what you will then, I’ll be in the decontamination ward, then my office. Have the techs notify me when the prisoner is properly situated.” With no small amount of hurry Proctor Smith stepped out the door and rushed down the hall. 

“Come with me.” The guard grabbed Luth roughly, detaching them from the table and dragging them by their handcuffs. The two began walking down the hall at a brisk pace. Luth was filled only with panic as they walked down the cold pale halls of the corporate labyrinth. Luth looked at the signs as they passed. “THEORETICAL STRUCTURES ANALYSIS SYSTEMS” one read “ANOMALY STORAGE WARD” read another and “BREAK ROOM” read another. Luth supposed that one was a little less notable. The pervasive feeling of unease in Luth’s gut reached its peak as they approached a sign reading “QUARANTINE WARD” but then to Luth’s surprise, they walked right past. 

“I-” Luth began “Shut it, I’m here to help.” the guard responded, their voice notably less deep and rigid than it had been in the room with Proctor Smith. Luth shut right up, following obediently as the halls they walked through got tinier and dingier. Eventually they came upon a door labelled “SERVICE PORT” with a disassembled security pad on the adjacent wall. The guard yanked the door open and pulled Luth through. The two were crammed into a claustrophobic airlock, with luth forced to the far side towards the door out. Luth peered out the portway, onto the endless red wastes, and the gentle light of the martian afternoon. “Sorry about this kid” was all Luth heard before a high pitched wine pierced their eardrums and everything went dark. 


	6. / The Monk

The first few rooms they came across were of little note. They looked both well travelled, yet completely abandoned, much like everything else the group had seen in the ship. The lack of change served only to add to the tension in the air. No signs of evacuation, struggle, damage, or anything, and yet, not a single soul walked these halls. As they made their way through more and more like rooms, Lilith’s mind was filled further and further with worry for the whereabouts of her friend. Tobias and Lilith had met in the earliest days of their childhood in the Church’s custodiums, bonding in the earliest days of their ministerial training. While higher orders of the Church were heavily segregated by gender, Tobias and Lilith had secretly kept in contact even into the latest parts of their training. The two had remained close and in communication until Tobias had been shipped off to a remote monastery while Lilith was assigned to the archives of the Inquisition. Lilith was of course happy that her friend had succeeded in his training and been granted such a blessed task, but that didn’t stop her from missing him.

Lilith’s contemplation halted when one of the warriors cried out. “My lord! My pneuma-scanner is picking something up! Two rooms ahead then three rooms to the right!” “Weapons forward men!” the captain barked in response. The troop of warriors set off in a coordinated assault pattern while Lilith rushed between the two squads. As they rounded the corner blue light could be seen streaming from the room’s doorway, and when they reached the entrance Lilith saw why. 

Every wall of the room was covered by monitors. The arrangement looked rushed and jury rigged, with wires pooling out onto the floor from almost every screen. The screens, that had surely once been used for blessed data-logging and observatory practices, had been repurposed for an arcane and blasphemous purpose. The screens were smattered with indecipherable symbols; possibly some ancient form of writing. Each one of the decrepit screens surely spoke blasphemies against the word of the Holy Father. The display of the screens all showed the same image; a featureless dark blue background with a single black orb in its center. At the far end of the small room sat a humanoid figure, their body slack against a metal chair, facing away from the entrance and towards the wall of screens. The squad of inquisitors entered the room and spread out, sanctified handguns all aimed at the figure. Lilith stood at the back, her eye’s viscorder capturing the scene as the docu-slate in her hands shook. A chilling silence hung heavy over the room, and then the figure spoke. “Lilith.” Tobias whispered.


	7. Red Sun /

Warmth. Comfort. Home. Luth felt themself surrounded by an ever present calm and weightlessness. All that stretched before them was a red haze. They were content to rest, to stay in this place, utterly without pain or fear. Luth's peace was disturbed as the red haze began to resolve itself into an image of the outside. Their perspective shifted from being in an endless red expanse to being inside of a hazy red sphere, around which was a familiar setting. Walls of flesh and blood surrounded their red orb, all built as some strange fleshy imitation of a MunchiStop convenience store. In front of Luth, at the center of the room outside of the orb, stood a person. That person was Luth.

As Luth's eyes opened their mind was wracked with the fog of waking up without enough sleep. Across from them was an unfamiliar table against an unfamiliar wall. Luth felt their head resting a flat unfamiliar pillow, and shot up. Holy shit where were they!? Getting a better bearing on their surroundings they noticed that the room was mostly unfurnished. All that was in there was the meagre cot they slept on and the table, upon which sat their old bomber jacket and a desk lamp (the room's only light source.) The room had no windows and to their left was the only exit, a closed metal door. Oh god. They remembered where they were. After slowly lifting themself off the mattress (for fear of creaks) Luth crept up to the door and... found it unlocked (hell yeah!) They quietly pumped their fist in celebration, grabbed their jacket from the table, and proceeded to sneak out the door. 

The door opened into a similarly drab cement stairway that led down. Luth crept down, making sure their edgy goth boots didn't make the squeaking noise they oh so loved to. When Luth got to the bottom of the stairway they were confronted with a hallway that had one opening on either side and what appeared to be a door out at its end. Luth almost ran forward out the door but caught themself at the last moment when they heard a voice from the room to the left. Luth crept to the edge of the archway and peered around the corner. In the room sat a lone figure. 


	8. / Black Moon of the Inverted Sea

Lilith gasped and dropped her slate. The whisper was spoken with the gentlest of breath yet still it echoed through the room. The figure stood, and turned. Lilith looked into the eyes of her friend, the friend she hadn’t seen since she was 10, and a cold void stared back. Where his eyes should have been there sat two gaps in the fabric of reality itself. More than darkness, these were holes of pure void, absence of all things, life, death, light, or dark. Tobias smiled “It’s good to see you Lilith.” Lilith stepped back “F-Foul creature… What are you!? What-What have you done with Tobias!?” Tobias’ expression became troubled “It’s me Lilith. I know I don’t look all that well, but it’s me.” and he took a step forward. Lilith began to chant litanies of protection and banishment “In all of your grace, o’ Holy Father, o’ Blessed Disc…” as she did so Tobias’ eyes welled up with tears. “Lilith, I’m sorry, but you’re not ready yet. You have a hard road ahead of you, but I believe in you.” 

As Tobias stepped forward Lilith’s prayer grew in volume and panic. Still staring at Lilith, Tobias' tears began to fall. Only, his tears didn’t fall down, as the artificial gravity of the Monastic ship would’ve normally drawn them to do. Instead, his tears fell up. The tears kept coming until they became outright streams of water flying directly up. Tobias stopped in the center of the room and water began to flow from his mouth, then ears, until every pore on him seeped dark water. All the while water had begun to gently pour out from behind the monitors on the wall, and as the flow burst forth from Tobias’ body so too did the other streams gush more. Lilith kept chanting, immobilized by fear. She looked around to see if anyone was there but the inquisitors had disappeared completely, leaving no trace of where or when they’d gone. 

Lilith looked back to see Tobias slowly being pulled up with the water, rising until he disappeared completely into the liquid void that was the ceiling. So cold and dark was this pool yet Lilith felt as if it was watching her. On the far side of the room, at the edge of the water, slowly began to fall a black orb. The disc fell from the water as if it was a celestial body rising over the horizon. The orb was a dark gap in reality akin to what had just occupied Tobias’ eyes, and when it came to rest it sat about a foot above the ground on the far side of the room. 

Lilith’s chants were the only sound during the stillness that followed the fall of this strange black orb. The moment seemed to stretch on forever, but then across the surface of the dark gap opened a massive eye. The iris was a kaleidoscope of boundless color, and its gaze was trained directly on Lilith. It was then that Lilith’s prayers faltered. As the deafening silence filled her soul and her panic mounted, two long black protrusions emerged from either side of the orb. As the limbs slowly pulled their way out, further protrusions grew from the tips, making a set of five long spindly fingers at the end of each arm. The pair of ethereal appendages slowly reached towards Lilith. Lilith tried to get away, to run, to escape whatever this unholy monstrosity before her was, but her legs simply would not move. The fingers of the entity neared her head and Lilith closed her eyes in fear. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmmmmmmm....... roumd....


	9. Dinner /

The room was dark, leaving only the vague imprint of a person sitting down and faced away at its end. The figure was all but shadow, hunched over, and muttering at something in their lap. Luth scanned around the room for anyone else that might hear or see them, glanced through the opposite archway and then made a mad dash for the door. Just as Luth reached the handle they heard a voice behind them. “Ah-ah-ah…” and a clicking noise. Luth assumed the worst. “Look kid sorry about the wack on the head but we gotta talk about this.” “W-well can I turn around?” Luth stuttered. A soft chuckle came from behind “Well sure you can! I’ve got a gun on you I don’t I? Can’t figure how turning around could change that.” Luth turned to see amused eyes behind the voice; their captor smiled at them with crows feet showing prominently. They were dressed in a navy blue turtleneck with black jeans. One hand scratched behind their head and the other held the gun; both bore tight black cloves. The face of the person was a dark brown and showed slight signs of age. Their hair was a close cropped military style, tightly curled, and with a shock of golden-brown bleached hair on the front right side. “C’mon, sit down with me.” they motioned to the room opposite to the one they’d come out of “You like ramen? I can heat up a mean ramen, lemme tell you!” They walked to the archway and turned around, their arm relaxed with the gun to their side. “You comin’ kid?” Luth was hit with the realization that they were still just standing there. “Oh! Uh yea- yeah sure… sorry” The captor waved the gun dismissively “Pshh nothing to say sorry for kid. What’s your name by the way? I’m Alex.” Luth followed them into the room. It was a cramped room with a small table on the wall opposite from the archway. Each of the two adjacent walls had a counter, one with a microwave and stove, the other with a sink. A series of cupboards sat above and below each. As Alex entered they proceeded to grab two cups of ramen, fill each with water, and shove them into a microwave. 

“I’m, uh, Luth.” Luth said. Alex sat down and motioned for Luth to sit. “Well Uh-Luth, you’re going through some interesting life changes. You got nabbed off the street by VisCorp IOD out of nowhere, and now you’ve been spirited away by some random woman you don’t know. Things sure are weird aren’t they.” As Alex spoke Luth felt that something was off. They stared at her until… No ID tag was popping up for Alex. For that matter, Luth had gotten 0 (zero) notifications from their nodephone since they’d woken up. “Did you do something to my nodephone!?” “Mhmm!” Alex said as she got up to grab the ramen from the microwave “Ah-Yeah about that! That was the next thing I was going to get to. You’re on the run from VisCorp now. I disabled the little bug in your head so they couldn’t track you.” Alex sat down and placed Luth’s ramen cup in front of them “A wanted fugitive. What a bold new life path you’ve begun.” she began to sip from her ramen like a cup of coffee. Luth found themself too shocked to respond. “Well kid are you gonna eat? Your ramen’s getting cold!” Luth looked down at their ramen. It was piping hot. They looked up at Alex.


	10. / Purification

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so as it turns out my consistency in uploading is not...........perfect. Gonna try getting back into it though.

A cacophony of gunshots filled Lilith’s ears and her eyes flew open. Around her stood 6 agents of the inquisition, and in front of her lay the body of Tobias. Lilith just stared. The 6 agents all stood with their weapons still trained on their target, while the captain muscled past Lilith to get to the center of the room. “Minister.” said the Captain. There was a pause. “Minister?” He said again, more firmly “Yes captain?” replied Lilith, shocked out of her stupor “Did your vis-corder catch what was happening with this monk’s eyes?” “Yes captain.” “Good. We’ll need that for the archives.” The captain turned to his men and began yelling orders. The noise passed right through Lilith, her eyes still trained on the body of her oldest friend. She thought about how they used to hide under the chapel pews after stealing cookies from the kitchen. She thought about how they used to pass notes to each other during educational blocks. She tried not to think about what she’d just seen. But she couldn’t. Her mind ran through the event over and over again, trying to make sense of what had happened. But it couldn’t.

The rest of the operation went by without upset. After they left the room where Tobias’ body lay, the group had found that all the water was gone from the ceilings. They searched through the rest of the ship but found neither evidence of incursion nor monks. The ship was untouched and unoccupied save for the room Tobias had been found in and the terminals the screens had been torn from. After hours of sweeps and scans, the captain gave out the order. The ship was empty; devoid of threat or citizen, and so they were to take their leave. The ship would be picked up by a technomancy guild; repaired and purified by the blessed mancers of the Church. Lilith and her escort would head back to the ship of the Inquisitorial Lord to report on their finding and deposit Tobias’ body for dissection. The journey from the derelict ship back to their scout ship had gone by in a haze for Lilith. She’d sat in the landing pod, surrounded by relieved Inquisitors all conversing on their plans for dinner and memories from leave, while she stared blankly out the porthole. Returning to their scouting craft she’d shuffled out, gone through the cleansing procedures (both the chemical scrub and the auto-litanies) and promptly made a polite farewell to the warriors before returning to her chambers. 


	11. Fuck 'em /

“W-What?! What are you talking about? Why!?” Luth asked. Alex looked at them quizzically, as if she had no clue about what was so outlandish about the information she’d just given Luth. “Hmm.. yeah fair they wouldn’t have told you anything I guess.” She sat back, looked up at the ceiling, and sighed. “Okay kid this is gonna be… a lot, so buckle up because I’m not gonna bullshit you.” She looked down at Luth. “Basically the higher ups of the Conglomerate have been doing some… interesting research, and people like you are the objects of interest for them.” “People like me?” Luth asked. “Well yeah so like...God how do I phrase this-okay so they call folks like you ‘Prophets.’ I’m not a hundred percent sure on what exactly makes y’all so special but from what I’ve gathered you guys are connected to something like a… power source or something. A power source that VisCorp and probably a couple other colonial conglomerates are after.” 

“What...kinda power source?” Luth asked. Alex paused for a moment. “Well it’s something otherworldly. If I’m being frank it’s probably aliens or something.” Luth just stared at her. This lady was obviously on some shit. Maybe she just had a few too many outdated neural implants or she’d gotten into the coolant storage or something. Luth remembered how the IOD proctor they’d been interrogated by had mentioned something about a terrorist attack they were investigating. God there were too many possibilities for something as vague as that. Was this lady a Posthumanist? A Monetary Redemptionist? A FashionDeluxe™ Neofascist? No she was probably a Stellar Purist. This whole alien thing would probably just end up being about how humans should never have settled outside of Earth. God. They had to figure some way of getting out but… for now they just had to stay safe. 

“So um, how am I connected to these aliens?” Alex shook her head “No no, okay so I don’t actually know if it’s specifically aliens but the reports I’ve seen keep talking about thoughtforms and immaterial contact and stuff so…” She shrugged “Maybe it’s ghosts, who the hell knows. As far as I know though, whatever VisCorp is after is trying to contact you guys directly.” “How many of us are there?” Luth asked. Alex shrugged again “Damn I dunno there’s like… a good handful of folks like you who’ve been identified as being connected to this thing VisCorp is after. They’ve been wrangling y’all up and doing all sorts of tests. A couple have died. It’s a fun time.” She sipped again from her ramen. 

“So yeah, anyways I’m tryna nab you guys before VisCorp can do whatever it is they want to do with you guys, ‘cause fuck ‘em.” Luth nodded “Fair enough.” And honestly it was. VisCorp and all the subsidiary corporate hands of the colonial conglomerate held a tight grip on just about every aspect of colonial life. Conglomerates like VisCorp had seeded the solar system with colonies in the first few centuries of the third millennium. In those days, with Earth in political  _ and  _ environmental disarray, there was neither incentive to remain on the homeworld, nor political oversight for those who managed the colonies. In the modern day, Governance across the colonies was generally built around a “meritocracy” in which power was determined exclusively by rank within one’s job. Every aspect of society was divided among corporate subsidiaries of the conglomerate. In the early days social position was based on how much one’s family was able to pay for the trip off of Earth, with the difference being made up for via labor contracts. Even after centuries of work, most of the population was still working off at least some ancestral debt. Debt in the colonies only stacked, with the pressure to survive leading many people to take on more debt, or sign further contracts to pay via… more severe means. Luth had never been off of Mars, as only the extremely rich were able to afford recreational interplanetary travel, so all they’d ever known was VisCorp. Most of the conglomerates had at least one colony on every major planetary body in the Solar system, but each had one or two planets where they had the majority of their colonies. While there were a few non-VisCorp colonies on Mars, they were maintained by only the most powerful rivals of VisCorp. Few could rival the sway VisCorp held over the red planet. 

“So!” Alex perked up “That’s where you come in” She stood up and began to walk out of the doorway into the kitchen. “I don’t really have anywhere I can stash you while I go do this stuff, so I’m gonna need your help on this next heist. Lemme go get the details.” And she was gone out of the room. Luth looked down at the ramen cup they still hadn’t touched, dumbfounded at the situation they’d found themself in. Without any other option they reached for the spoon Alex had left beside their cup and began to sip the broth. What the hell. They had no idea what to do here. As they sipped they looked around the room. They were within what appeared to be an apartment, but it was a weird one. It looked dusty and old, yet barely lived in. Almost no sign of daily life was here. The box of cup ramen Alex had pulled from sat askew on the counter in a manner that hinted at a very recent and haphazard placement. Luth thought about what kind of apartment would look like this, searching for the barest hint of evidence about where they were. If they knew where they were, they might know how easy it would be to get out. To get help. Or… if there was help. Their stomach sunk at that last thought. 

Luth remained locked in this hopeless cycle, thinking on how insurmountable this situation seemed. Luth was so entrenched in their sorrowful rut that they didn’t even react when their eyes rested on the gun, sitting right where Alex had left it on the table. Wait. Luth’s eyes snapped into focus. The gun!?


End file.
